Fade (Natural Selection)
These are the shock troops of the Kharaa: versatile, tough, and highly specialized to combat. Disturbingly humanoid, Fades mix excellent ranged attacks with powerful melee damage – which when combined with the seemingly supernatural blink ability, make them powerful all-around brutes, whose cunning cannot be underestimated. Attacks *'Swipe': Lightning swipes of their muscled arms shred metal and marines. *'Blink': Teleportation? Space distortion? However it works, a blinking fade moves nearly too fast to see, or shoot. To use, point and hold down your left mouse button default: the space between you and your destination will rapidly narrow. Hitting the jump key while blinking allows impressive leaps. *'Metabolize': With this ability, the fade converts its energy into health, gaining 20 hp per use. *'Acid Rocket': The symbiotic organism on the fade's shoulder, once awakened, can spit pods of acid long distances. Upon impact, they splash a 165 unit radius. Name The Kharaa are so sneaky, it took some time for Frontiersmen to realize the blink ability existed at all. Fades seemed to appear and disappear with no rhyme or reason, penetrating seemingly air-tight defensive perimeters, or vanishing from a heavy fire fight without a trace. Marines soon reported these creatures "fading" away right before their eyes. Though we now understand there is a hive ability responsible for this phenomena, we are no closer to truly understanding how it functions. Observations "If you want to know what it's like inside a bilebomb, here it is: the thump of its decompression feels like a kick to your guts, right to your bones and innards, and the clumps of stuff that settle over you just look evil, like they were made to kill you … which is pretty much true. Other details would include the warning whine of my heavy armor's gauge as it dived from two hundred towards one, and the leg of the forward turret crumpling so it toppled onto its side, still twitching as it pathetically tried to acquire a target. The other turret whined uselessly on its perch behind me, atop the turret factory. I got my feet under me and stood up, pointing my shotgun at the top of the ladder, inching forward for a shot down into the vault. The theory was that anything that wanted me was going to have to get past the turrets and come up the ladder, where my shotgun would either end it fast, or knock them back down. No one seemed to plan on the Kharaa getting three hives up, and a brute of a Fade deciding to lob its little death cocktails up at me. The vault had only one entrance, making it a good place to defend, but a bad place to be trapped. My perch was on a shelf along the back of the room that had had some furniture and a couple of terminals. We cleared them away and set up a small base. The Mercantile League took its valuables seriously. The vault was filled with smooth self-pressurized containers, each a safe in its own right. The gridlock had scrambled a few, popping them open, but most were intact, looking like oversized coffins against the cream-colored floor below. There was no sign of the Fade. Then a whisper of light and movement behind me, and the Fade was right there. Even in my heavy armor it towered over me. It slashed with one arm – a clang, and the last turret's feet tore free. The second blade followed a split second later, ripping it down and smashing it into the wall. I hit it from ten feet away with my shotgun – I know I hurt it, bits of its wiry skin blew back away from it like dust. It whipped around to face me and the organic gun on its right shoulder unpuckered its lips. I jumped. I could hear acid rockets firing overhead. My armor took more damage from the twenty foot drop, but I figured it was the better alternative. I stayed crouched, pointing my shotgun at the top of the ladder. I heard the base being destroyed. The dish from our observatory rolled off the edge and cracked on the ground like a dinner plate, not ten feet from me. So much for our second base. I got the hell out of there while I could." Guides: *ENSL guide by Invasion Category:Kharaa (Natural Selection) Category:Natural Selection Category:Kharaa (Natural Selection 2) Category:Playable Lifeform